Site Title

Young and charming.

A
long time ago, I had some baby possums. Their mother had been killed
by a car while crossing the road with her children on her back. A
teacher who found them gave the survivors to me. (At the time there
were no wildlife rescue centers in the area.) Fortunately, they were
more or less weaned. I carried them around in my shirt pockets.

They
were lovely then. They had soft silver fur with black rings
around their eyes. They had little white-furred hands, and if you
gave them a slice of apple they would sit on their haunches, hold it
in their hands, and eat it the way people in cartoons eat slices of
watermelon. They had prehensile tails, with a little soft white fur
on them, and if you forced them to, they would hang from your finger
by their tails. They loved to clamber about on your body, checking
out your pockets.

Visibility: poor.

Although
they trusted me, they showed no signs of loving me or anyone. As they
got bigger, their beautiful silver fur grew coarse, which is why you
so seldom see possum-fur coats. Their tails coarsened, too, scaly and
ratlike. Their 50 teeth became more worrisome to see, although they
never bit a person.

While
under one of my relatives' care, one of them, Stong, escaped. He
trashed a neighbor's cat which foolishly attacked him, and went on
his merry way. The other one, Buckley, went to college with me. He
learned but little.

Male
possums can raise and lower their (large) testicles at will, and it
was amusing to watch Buckley waddling over rough terrain, raising his
testicles over obstacles. He had a full suite of instincts and was
astoundingly good at locating ancient rotten fruit, baby robins in
the shrubbery, and other toothsome snacks. He would hiss when I took
these things away from him, but not bite. Despite these skills, he
feared the forest and would climb my leg in a panic if he thought I
was leaving him. If I tried to stroke him, he would flatten his back
to avoid my touch. (Thus if you tried to stroke him while he was
crossing a testicle-snagging obstacle, he would become quite flat.) He
didn't like to be scratched either. He didn't care for dogs and cats.
He enjoyed eating, sleeping, and sniffing things.

 In
addition to Buckley, I took my dog and cat to college (I lived
off-campus). Then there was the chicken, whose name I have forgotten,
let us say Dave.  

An adult possum, stealing grapes, unrepentant.  

My
friend Laurel was taking embryology. In the lab there was an
incubator full of fertilized chicken eggs developing into chickens,
commercial Leghorn crosses. Periodically the class would dissect a
few to see how the embryos developed. Some never got dissected and
hatched into dear little fuzzy chicks. The professor jovially offered
to put them down, but several students said no! they would adopt
the fluffballs. Laurel, who lived in a triple, took one. Soon it
was time to go home for the summer. Dave was no longer fuzzy – he
was starting to get unattractive pinfeathers. Laurel was doubtful
that border officials would let her take Dave to her family home in
Mexico City, and certain that they would not allow him back across
the border.

 So
since I had a dog and a cat and a possum and lived in the US and was
driving home, would I take Dave? Okay. Laurel delivered him to me,
with his box, and his chicken feed, and his water dish.

I
took him home and all was well. Not that my father was pleased with
this addition. At night, I covered Dave's box with a larger inverted
box, so he would sleep in darkness serene.

One
morning I got up and began to tend the livestock. The dog and cat
went out. I let Buckley out to trundle around the room sniffing
things. Waddle, sniff, peer, sniff, waddle. I lifted up the top box
so Dave would know the sun had risen. But unbeknownst to me, Dave had
leapt out of his box and was in the space between the outside of his
box and the covering box. When I lifted the covering box Dave dashed
brainlessly across the floor and Buckley whirled at the speed of
light CLOMP and sank his teeth into Dave's neck, killing him
instantly. He hissed when I took Dave away from him.

I
felt awful. I let my possum kill Laurel's beloved Dave! (At least I
didn't let him eat Dave.) How would I tell her? I didn't have her
number in Mexico, so I put it off.

In
the fall I was dreading having to tell Laurel. I didn't go looking
for her. Finally I saw her coming toward me in the quad. I had to
face her. She was bubbling with information about her summer, her new
dorm, classes. I listened and said little, racked with misery.
Finally I said, "You know your chicken you gave me to — "

"Do
you still have him?"

"No,
I'm really really sorry — "

"Oh
thank God! I was dreading having to tell my roommate I had a
chicken!"

I
did tell her what happened, but she didn't really care, for the love
of Dave had receded in his absence. Well damn. I could have let
Buckley eat his catch.